Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
February 1, 2023
Terje Sparby, Mira Leass, Ulrich Weger et al.
8 citations
Training people to use micro-phenomenological self-inquiry can improve their ability to describe the fine details of headache experiences, including distinguishing the sensation of pain from the experience of suffering. Thirteen untrained subjects met twice in one week to investigate their headache experiences using this method. Their reports became richer, as shown by more categories described and more words needed for accurate description. The method allows deep focus on single moments of experience but may miss broader contextual meanings. The authors suggest the approach could be useful in clinical settings with initially untrained subjects for describing specific experiences and answering complex phenomenological questions.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
December 1, 2021
Terje Sparby, Anna-Lena Lumma, Friedrich Edelhäuser et al.
5 citations
Micro-phenomenology is a technique for improving first-person reports of experience, typically conducted with a second-person interviewer. A self-inquiry format, using a guiding document without an interviewer, offers time and cost advantages but its reliability for untrained subjects was unknown. This study attempted to replicate a previous experiment that tested whether micro-phenomenology increases report reliability. The replication failed. Possible explanations include a methodological weakness in the original study, ineffectiveness of the self-inquiry format used here, or that micro-phenomenological self-inquiry requires training. The authors conclude that the self-inquiry format is insufficient for conducting micro-phenomenological studies and that training is necessary.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
March 30, 2026
Albina Gallyamova, Elizaveta Komyaginskaya, Dmitry Grigoryev
A general cognitive-motivational liability underlies diverse epistemically unfounded beliefs—conspiracy, paranormal, pseudoscientific, religious, and pseudo-profound (“bullshit”) beliefs—alongside domain-specific components. In a nationally representative Russian sample (N = 1268), a bifactor model best captured the covariance structure, with a general factor explaining about half of the common variance. Domain scores alone confound this general liability with specific variance, distorting cross-domain comparisons. Cognitive and motivational antecedents correlated more strongly with the general factor, while each belief domain showed distinct additional profiles. The findings support a dimensional view rooted in a common cognitive-motivational architecture, potentially reflecting an evolved predisposition favoring Type I errors and archaic magical thinking.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
August 1, 2022
Una Tellhed, Annie Sollvén, Alexandru Tamas et al.
Listening to a brief loving-kindness meditation can increase communal career goals—wanting to help others and benefit society—in high-school students, potentially boosting interest in HEED occupations (Healthcare, Early Education, Domestic fields) that face labor shortages and are gender-skewed. In three experimental studies, high-school students (Studies 1 and 3) who listened to a 12-minute meditation recording rated stronger communal career goals compared to controls who did not listen or heard calm music. This effect did not replicate in university students (Study 2), possibly due to less flexible career goals or a ceiling effect. The authors propose this as the first demonstration of a method to raise communal career goals in youth.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
March 1, 1963
Marianne Frankenhaeuser
The effects of nitrous oxide at different subanaesthetic concentrations were examined in twelve subjects. Subjective intoxication and eight mood variables were measured using magnitude estimation, and objective performance was tested with memory and arithmetic tasks. For most variables, dose-response curves showed progressively larger effects as dose increased. At concentrations below 20 percent, changes were very slight. The results are compared with similar data from an alcohol experiment.
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
March 1, 1962
Marianne Frankenhaeuser, Gundla Jarpe
Subjective intoxication from nitrous oxide increases regularly and pronouncedly with higher doses, as measured by magnitude estimation. Both the intoxicated subjects' own estimates and observers' ratings showed this pattern. Objective performance changes followed the same general trend but were much less pronounced. The authors concluded that subjective scaling methods are well suited for measuring drug-induced changes in subjective variables.